The present invention relates to a body-sensible acoustic device which can be used with a chair or seat such as an automobile seat.
In general, in an automobile, low-frequency sounds, being masked by road noise, engine sounds and other types of vibration, cannot be heard sufficiently, and accordingly music played in such an environment may not be as vivid as heard in other places. This drawback may be alleviated somewhat by using a graphic equalizer or a so-called super-woofer. However, the low-frequency sounds are unavoidably still not rich and clear. Moreover, if the volume is turned up sufficiently for passengers in the rear seat, the driver may not able to hear external sounds adequately and thus cannot drive the automobile safely.
In view of the foregoing, recently it has been proposed to mount a body-sensible acoustic device in a seat. The device is used to vibrate the seat body in response to low-frequency components of a musical signal. In this case, the vibration of the seat body is transmitted directly (not through the air) to the listener's body. Therefore, the sound waves transmitted through the ears and the vibration waves transmitted directly to the body are mixed so that the listener can perceive considerably impressive extremely low-frequency sounds using his whole body.
Most body-sensible acoustic devices of this type proposed to date had to be an integral part of the seat and could not be installed on an existing seat. One body-sensible acoustic device is available which is intended to be fixedly secured inside the back of an automotive seat. However, to install this body-sensible acoustic device, it is necessary to remove the seat cover or remove the seat body itself from the automobile. Thus, the installation of the device is considerably troublesome.